It's Academic
by Jalen Strix
Summary: A collection of stories set in some version of academia that involves Sarah and Jareth. Humor most likely making a common appearance as a genre, with potential adult-like overtones as the fancy strikes.
1. Small Favors

**Small Favors**

_Jareth makes Sarah an offer as the end of the fall semester looms near. Written for the labyfic livejournal challenge theme of "Christmas" with a bonus item of an advent calendar._

* * *

><p>Sarah glanced morosely at the calendar pinned to the wall next to her desk. It was the advent calendar that Toby always sent her, which she normally adored. But this one was marred with sticky notes saying things like "course assessment report due", "letters of recommendation must be submitted by now!" and "final grades due - <span>no exceptions<span>".

She had intended it to be motivating. And it was. It was also decidedly ruinous to her general mood this month.

She dropped her head onto her desk and her hand brushed the stacks of papers next to her. They could charitably be called _towering_ and were perhaps more accurately described as _of despair-inducing height_. She lifted her head slightly to survey them, shaking it in disbelief. "Why did I think asking two hundred and fifty psychology undergraduates to write a scientific review paper was a good idea?" Her head slumped back down. "Especially with final grades due three days afterwards."

A familiar resonant voice slid sinuously across her skin. "Unyielding optimism. One of your finer qualities."

She raised her head, blinking one eye open to see Jareth sitting in the chair across from her. "Nice to see you, your majesty." Her gaze slowly traveled down the length of his legs. "Excellent boots. Come to taunt me in my grading misery?"

His smile glittered with hidden amusement. "Would I do that?"

"In a firey heartbeat, if it suited you," she replied, shutting her eyes again. "Is this a normal pastime of well-shod, immensely powerful faerie kings?"

"Just the ones you humiliated when you were fifteen. Fortunately, we're a rare breed."

"Thank goodness for small favors," she mumbled into the desk. After a few more moments, she opened her eyes halfway to squint at the looming paper stacks."Care to help me with these? It'd make a fine Christmas present from erstwhile villain to erstwhile heroine."

He arched an eyebrow. "What, I should just toss a few crystals at these rather..._prodigious..._stacks and they'll magically acquire critical comments and numerical assessments?"

Both of her eyes shot open. "Can you do that?"

Multiple crystals materialized, playing gracefully through his fingers. His eyes narrowed slightly as he considered them. After several moments, the crystals collapsed abruptly in a spray of glitter. "Probably not. Too much fine detail involved - it would take less time to grade them by hand than it would to work out the spell mechanics."

Sarah dropped her head back to the desk.

"That doesn't mean I can't help."

She lifted her head slightly, raising an eyebrow.

"Do you have a grading rubric?" With a flourish of his hand, an elegant fountain pen appeared. "I have the requisite red pen."

She sat up and blinked slowly at him. "You're actually offering to help me grade. By hand."

His smile was filled with wicked intimation. "I'm skilled with my hands."

Her chest tightened as her cheeks flooded with heat. "_Grading_ by hand. Of these papers." She swallowed, considering her current - admittedly herculean - task. "Not that I'm not grateful for the offer, but don't you have better things to do?"

"Better than gaining leverage on my favorite erstwhile heroine? Surely not."

"Aha." She took a slow breath. "And what's the price for this regal altruism?"

He stretched back into the chair, crossing his legs. "Christmas Day spent Underground."

She shook her head slowly and tried very carefully to keep her gaze on his face. "Impossible. My family would miss me."

He shrugged dismissively. "The goblins miss you. _I_ miss you. You haven't visited in far too long. Besides," he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the edge of the desktop as he twirled the fountain pen from one hand to the other, "who's here right now offering to accompany you on your grading frenzy? Consider carefully."

"Subtle, your majesty." Her lips twitched in a small smile.

"Targeted, dear professor. So," he brandished the pen, "is it a deal?"

"I don't know how I'm going to explain missing Christmas."

"Unexpected work travel." Smug satisfaction curled from him. "It even has the benefit of being somewhat true as it's unexpected travel due to work I'll do for you now."

She looked at him for a long moment before nodding and pushing a stack of papers at him. "Alright. Here, you start with these." She waved a finger to his left. "The rubric's over on the whiteboard."

He glanced at the board before inclining his head, his smile flashing wide. "At your service, my lady."

She snorted. "Let's just see how jolly you are after looking at some of these, your majesty. And don't say I didn't warn you."

"Never would I ever."

She rolled her eyes and picked up the top paper from one of her stacks.

Several minutes passed in silence.

He suddenly tossed his paper down in disgust. "Is this even English?"

She smirked. "Told you." She glanced at the name. "And that's probably one of the more coherent ones."

He crossed his arms. "Grading will be simple then. I'll make you a rubber stamp that says 'Incomprehensible Trash' and you can fail them all. We'll be finished in no time."

"Now, now, your majesty...that's not very constructive, is it? How will they learn if there are no comments as to what's wrong?"

The full weight of his gaze fell on her, chilly with disbelief. "Your generosity has turned you cruel."

She smiled sweetly at him. "Learned from the best. Now back to work, your majesty. Only two hundred forty eight more after this."


	2. Prospects

**Prospects**

_Professor Sarah Williams encounters an unexpected potential protege._

* * *

><p>The chair of the English department pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes briefly. "You can't keep turning your nose up at prospective graduate students, Sarah. I don't care how productive your research program is. Your next merit review won't fly without at least some graduate mentoring."<p>

Sarah's jaw clenched. This was an old argument. "I do digital humanities. None of the prospectives for the department have the computational background I need."

He raised his eyebrows imploringly. "Have you even looked at this year's prospectives?"

She stared flatly back.

He sighed. "Well, you better start."

* * *

><p><em>Abysmal. Simply abysmal. <em>Sarah snorted derisively as she sifted through the GRE scores of the applicant pool.

She clicked to the next candidate. _Well, helloooooo there. _Perfect scores on the quantitative and writing sections.

"And why ever would you want to come here, Mr. Jay Aran?" she murmured, skimming the statement of purpose. _Digital humanities, and you want to work with little old me. Well, well, well._

He had background in both literature and computer science, and the letters of recommendation looked solid enough - a computational linguist, a stylometrist, and a philosopher of language.

"Time to bring you in for a little interview, my sweet." Her smile was rapacious as she emailed her department chair.

* * *

><p>"And here's Professor Williams's office, Jay - go on in. She's expecting you."<p>

Sarah glanced up as a tall, slender boy entered, closing the door neatly behind him. He sat down in the chair on the other side of her desk, crossing his legs with casual grace. The afternoon sunlight did wonders for him, highlighting his cornsilk hair, the carved patrician features, the exquisitely pale skin, and the mismatched eyes gleaming like wicked stars.

Sarah stared for several very long moments.

He stared back, eventually arching one perfect golden eyebrow.

She broke first. "What are you doing here?"

"Being interviewed by you, as I understood it." His voice was just as she remembered, resonant and sliding across her skin like warm honey. But younger. Unmistakably younger.

She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. _Nope, still here. Alrighty then. _"Jareth-"

"Jay at the moment," he interjected.

She closed her eyes briefly. "Jay, then. Why do you look twenty three?"

A faint grimace flickered. "A little tussle with the Fates."

She digested that for a minute. "Is it permanent?"

"Hopefully not." He inspected his fingernails. "Can't tell you the rules, of course, or it will be."

She pressed her fingers to her forehead. "Let me guess - this whole PhD student thing is part of it. You need me to take you on as my digital humanities apprentice for some ungodly reason only the Fates understand." She slowly shook her head. "Is this a lesson in humility by chance? For both of us?"

He shrugged, looping his hand absently as if it held a crystal. "The Fates have a very precise sense of justice. Meanwhile, I have the skills you need and you have a department chair breathing down your neck. I say we make a deal."

"You have the skills, do you? You just made that paper trail up."

"Did I now? Try me."

Her nostrils flared as she considered for a minute. "What classifier would you use to identify the author of a text, given a set of comparison texts?"

He didn't miss a beat. "How many samples of each potential author do I have and how large are they?"

"Let's say ten each, consisting of a thousand words."

"The SMLR."

"Why not SVM?"

"SMLR is faster."

"Hmmph. What features would you use?"

"Word, syntactic, and document-level, with a log likelihood transform to accentuate the useful ones for each author."

She blinked at him.

He smiled back.

"Fine. But I'm the advisor and you do what I say."

"As you wish."

"There'll be coursework, you know. Both literary and computational."

"Of course."

"You'll also have to TA for your keep during the year. Freshman composition is a right bitch."

"I'm sure."

"It's a five year program."

"Five? Your graduate catalog claims six to seven for this department."

"I'll get you out in five. This is interdisciplinary work, and we go the multiple paper route, rather than the book."

"Sounds delightful."

She took a deep breath. "Alright, I'll let the chair know I'm taking you on."

He leaned back in his chair, arching to show off a very toned upper torso.

Her eyes wandered along said torso before she could snap them back to his face. "There will be no professor-student romance between us. None. Nada. Zip."

He blinked slowly. "Such a pity."

"If it happens, someone else needs to become your advisor or I'll lose my job. There's no one else who could handle what you need, so I repeat: No romantic hijinks will ensue." She paused. "Besides, at your current age, I'm far too old for you."

"Tsk, a ten year gap is nothing. Especially for academics."

"You're not an academic yet. And remember the first reason."

"Of course. No one else can give me what I _need_." The double entendre flowed like spiced wine, heating the air between them.

She shook herself and leveled her best disapproving stare at him. "Unweave that tone from our interactions or this apprenticeship is over before it's begun."

His smile was calculating even as his eyes lit with glee. "But once you accept me as your student, I'll have rights as well."

She smiled back, flashing her teeth. "As will I. Don't make me hit you with a sexual harassment complaint. Our equity office is so very...protective of its female faculty."

He blinked slowly. "Devious."

"Academic bureaucracy is a byzantine behemoth. You have no idea."

"You'll have to teach me, then."

"That I will."


End file.
